Have you read the book “The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less” by Richard Koch? In the book Koch explains the 80/20 (Pareto) principle which means that 20% of our time accounts for 80% of the work we accomplish. In other words 20% of our work provide more results than the rest 80%.
The principles applies to other things also. Did you know, for example, that 20% of customers account for 80% of revenues?
Understanding this principle can powerfully benefit your online business.
What is Your 20% That Determines 80% of the Results?
If you want to make money online (and at the same time provide important value for other people) there are certain steps you need to take.
Some of the important steps are:
- Build a Website
- Get Enough Education/Knowledge
- Write Content and Add Images
- Network in Social Media
- Do Social Media, Email and Other Marketing
- Get Feedback and Develop Your Websites
- Sell Products or Services (your own or other people’s products)
- Keep Your Clients Satisfied
Probably there are also other things to do but these are usually very important, especially selling. If you want to earn money, you need to sell something. Someone has to be interested in your product or services.
But sometimes you may find yourself doing useless things related to your business. Online business is always a process, it’s not an event. You do certain things until you succeed. But you need to concentrate on the things that are the most important at your phase of the process.
Different Phases – Which is Your Phase?
If you don’t have your own websites your most important task should be to build one. When your websites are brand new you should concentrate on writing content and providing important value for the readers. At this point it would be totally useless to spend hours and hours analyzing your visitors from Google Analytics if you don’t have enough visitors or any content on your website.
At this point your 20% (the most important task) would be developing your websites.
But let’s assume that your website is appealing. You have good theme, good images, good email list, good content and products to sell. Then it would be highly important to get more visitors to your websites. You can make for example social media campaigns. That may be the most important (20%) task at this point of the online business process. (But remember that scrolling Facebook’s or Twitter’s news feed is not social media marketing. It’s only a waste of time!) 😉
Concentrate on 20% = Get the Results Faster!
Many people are asking, “How much it takes to make some money or a full-time income online?” It depends on two things.
- How much do you invest time to your online business?
- How much time do you invest doing the most important (20%) things related to your online business?
You may invest 100 hours and get the same results when someone has used 200 hours. Be sure that you are the one who is not wasting time on the useless things.
Nothing really happens until you take action. Today I want to challenge you:
1.Take a sheet of paper and a pencil
2.Write down the most important thing in your online business right now
3.Start working until the task is done
4.Repeat
Writing down helps. The thing you have written will sink into your subconscious mind and it will start searching the ways how you can accomplish the task. It also helps you as a reminder if you find yourself scrolling that Facebook news feed or reading useless blog again.
Summary
20% of our time accounts for 80% of the work we accomplish.
Concentrate on the most important tasks and you will achieve more results with less time.
What are your most important tasks right now in your online business? Leave a comment below.
Hey Roope,
I have been thinking a lot about the 80/20 principle lately after reading the 4 Hour Work Week and this article is a good reminder. I have found it extremely effective to spend time doing a 80/20 analysis regularly for not only my online business, but my emotional and physical life as well.
-Alex
Hi Alex,
I have also read 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss where he speaks something about this principle. I agree with you that in can totally be applied also to the other things in life. I believe that you get more things done in less time because you use this principle in your life regularly!
-Roope
Hey I just want to drop a quick line to say thanks for all this great information on making revenue.
Lots of others like myself are afraid of home/online ways to make revenue.
You give enough info that it provokes more trust that it’s definitely worth looking into.
Thanks and here’s to hoping that revenue finds us all!
Definitely we’ll be coming back!
Carrie B.
Thank you for the encouragement Carrie.
Yes, I want to raise of the opportunity of earning money online. Before I didn’t know that it’s possible but after studying and working on the things I know that there are actually limitless opportunities on the Internet!
I’m glad that you are enjoying the information. Join the email list for our newsletter and stay tuned!
-Roope
Thanks for this reminder. It’s so easy to feel overwhelmed when setting up an online business. I’m at the create great content and images stage on my website, and very much enjoying that phase. I’ll be heading on to social media campaigns soon. Any helpful advice for me?
Thank you for the comment Helen Tobias.
That’s true there are many things to learn. But actually, that may be one of the greatest things in the online things. You can always learn something new!
I would say that start by focusing mainly on one social media at first. Of course, you can use many of them but put the biggest emphasis on one of them. Don’t try to learn 5 social media’s at the time. It’s much easier to focus on one first and then move to the other one. I recommend to join Wealthy Affiliate and find out what they teach in their trainings about social media :).
I wish you success online!
-Roope